The Happy 8 Retreat @ Kuala Sepetang 2-3 Jun 2016

I found this design unique hotel from the internet, and it really draws a huge attractions to this little village.

For travelers who want to take in the sights and sounds of Kuala Sepetang, The Happy 8 Retreat @ Kuala Sepetang is the perfect choice, if you are choosing artistic environment and different than the usual conventional hotel.

There are not much similar hotel like this, others would be more of motels or homestay or inn.

Staying at the Happy 8 Retreat provide something more priceless - the chirping of birds, the noise of the fishing boats in the background as we just rest and relax at the mother nature.

There is actually no recognizable entrance at the ground floor! We can recognize the location of the hotel through the signature head of eagle sculpture on the roof top.

Entry is through a fish dealer's warehouse, with cold rooms to one side, and tricycles to another. There's even a slight fishy odor. And on top of that, at the roadside leading to this entry, fish and prawns were being dried out in the open.

Initially, we were a bit puzzle and not sure we were at the right place, but getting nearer through the entrance clear glass, we can see the nicely decorated interior and we were sure enough that we were at the right place.

Outside the lobby, at the waiting area are large chairs carved from huge timber logs for visitors to sit. Behind this, another mural of happy boys fishing.

One thing great about this is the privacy of the patrons are well guarded, the main door is activated by key card; no key card, no entry.

Once enter to the reception lobby, besides the waiting area, we can notice that it is a café at the ground floor.

The designer have tastefully furnished the lobby. Facing brick walls, timber flooring warms up the place. Plants in rattan-weave baskets, a rattan overhead lamp and a driftwood  sculpture hangs from the ceiling to add to this décor.

Just beyond the lobby, the dining area has the same local theme of charcoal and fishing nets. Charcoal logs low partition separates out different sections.

A glass table sits on charcoal log legs surrounded by yellow netted chairs. The outdoor dining is near to the river, we can enjoy a lovely view any time just by sitting there enjoying the drinks.

Happy 8 is consists of 2 levels of the rooms. Some rooms with the panorama river view, some with partially village view, and with no windows.

The ambience is warm and cozy along the walk to the rooms; the corridors are dim and lined with murals of eagles and marine life.

All is on a blue theme with brown timer frames accentuating this. It brings out the exotic feels of the place.

At the end of the corridor, a louver window gives a peep down to the river below. It shows a scene of a boat idling sailing down the river, it is a scene that promises of more to come.

One thing interesting and special about Happy 8 is that, each room have its own theme and design inside the room.

Even the bedrooms’ door are easy to identify, each bedroom door has a nice icon of a wildlife - fishes, bird, etc.

Our room was at the 3rd floor, and with a forest kind of theme. Yes, there's a lot of timber around to balance and give warmth amidst the blue theme.

There is a King size bed down, and 4 single mattresses at the bunk bed above.

The view of the the King size bed looking through the colonial style timber louvered doors with a large timber pull lock leads to a small balcony with a fishing net railing.

From here, one can enjoy a lovely evening view of the river with the moored fishing boats.

Birds twitting, a slow boat chugging and the sun setting in the background primes one for a good night's sleep.

In the morning, overlooking the river, there is the shrill chirping of swallows and the roar of the fishing boats as they leave for the day's fishing. It's a wake-up call for an exciting day ahead.

In the bathroom, the basin itself is a solid timber carved with the round shape bowl. The tap with it's exposed copper piping and brass tap heads adds to the rustic, old world ambience.

The shower area is an expose where we can just look up to the air well which expose to the roof top.

There is a TV in the room but the TV do not have any signal or channel at all. Well, this encourage us do other activities than watching the TV.

I was a little bit disappointed with the breakfast serving as there is not much choice, but truly quite surprise with its presentation.

It is roti canai wrap with chicken sausage, scrambled eggs and ham for adults, and sandwich with cheese, eggs, hams and chicken sausage for the children.

Salad and fruits completes the meal, while free flows of coffee or tea are served.

Of coarse we just brought our own mineral water. We were  having our breakfast happily and every once in a while looking through the fishing-netted railing at the boats along the river.

Overall, we found this is a great place to stay at a fishing village, as our family love the nature and like to experience different things.

Kuala Sepetang River Cruise 2 Jun 2016

It was an instant decision we made during our time waiting for check-in to the hotel.

Daddy was asking the owner of the hotel how to book or buy the ticket for the river tour, as we have seen many tour buses brought a lot tourists for the river tour.

While we were waiting, the kind uncle introduced us to the tour operator, then Daddy gave him our contact number, so he can call us later.

After we came back from the walkabout around the town, we were all resting in the room, until a man knocked on our door. He was from the Port Weld Eco Tour, he introduced himself and the package offer to us.

The package include sightseeing fisherman village, variety of boats, Kampung Seberang, fish farm, eagle watching, Kuala Sangga, seeing firefly and viewing evening sunset. It would take approximately a 2 1/2 to 3 hours journey. All together is RM150.00 including 2 adults and 3 children.

Daddy just on the deal, and we were asked to wait at the ground floor lobby at 5.00pm. A young boy was waiting for us and guided us to the boat.

There were a few families on the boat as well. The children were so happy and excited on the trip. There were 2 little tour guide on our boat, the boy whom guided us to the boat, he is a teenager and in secondary school; the other a fat boy is in primary school. Both of them are funny and talkative.

First, the boat brought us to the “little island” which made by the cockles shells, there were monkeys on the areas too, unfortunately it is not meal time yet, thus we can’t even see them.

After that, we were brought to the upstream of the Sungai Sepetang to see the fisherman village both sides of the river. There is an overhead bridge linked both sides of the village. According to Ah Boy, that was just finish constructed a few years ago, before that the villagers still using the boats to come and flow between both sides.

There was a cockles washing factory in one of the house facing the river, various of boats, big and small, parked just out of the houses.

There is a boat repair yard too, the one and only at Kuala Sepetang. Every fishermen will go to the same yard when their boat need to repair. The boat stopped nearby the mangrove forest where the eagles live.

When our boat reached the calm water area surrounded by the mangrove forests, the boatman shut down the engine to eliminate the noise.

Ah Boy went to the backside of the boat with a bag full of chicken skins and starts throwing the pieces into the water. The eagles here seem to know when a boat is around they would have a feast on offering.

Look at the sky and you will see many eagles circling. And then they will start swooping down to catch their food floating on the water and take off in split seconds.

The eagles have terrific eyesight and can actually pin point a target such as a fish from a far distance.

After, we were going to the fish farm, whereby the fish farm was purposely built up by the local tour operators to create the tourist attraction.

There were horse shoe crabs, and surprisingly puffer fish! Everyone of us can feed the fish by taking a paper cup full of fish food.

Issac was so brave in touch and hold the puffer fish! ah Boy gave a clear explanations on the puffer fish characters, and their habitual.

After the fish farm, we were heading to the Kuala Sangga. Kuala Sangga is a small fishing village with only a few dozens of households, mostly are Teow Chew clan.

Majority of them live on shrimp industry and raising live stocks as supplementary. There is no water and electricity supply here and thus, villagers have to drink rainwater.

Early immigrants attach great importance to education and they established a Chinese primary school for their children. However, there are only approximately 20 household here and 20 over students with 10 teachers in the Chinese primary school. There was a house just next to the school, I guess that should be the teachers’ hostel.

There are a few Chinese temples on the island, and a catholic church as well. During when we were strolling along the boardwalk, we were hearing sort of Thai music were playing on the music player.

Daddy said, mostly are Teowchew people, they are more font of Thai music.

Ah Boy even shown us the so called ‘pirate king’s house. Kuala Sangga used to be the home of the pirates, and their leader used to stay here.

The house looked a bit old, but I believe the local did help to paint the external of the house, thus it still looked ok from the front.

At the back portion of the house had been falling apart already. The ‘Pirate King’ story added on the eeriness of the house itself.

There were 2 boats ferrying Chinese tourists here too, during we were waiting for our boat to park at the jetty.

After Kuala Sangga, we were brought to the open sea to see the sunset view and the eagles.

It was almost 7.00pm. The whole day was so hot, thus we were hoping to see the nice sunset as well. Unfortunately, the clouds were so thick that, it had blocked the sunset view.

It was not our lucky day too as we unable to see any of the pink dolphins. Annabelle was so disappointed that she cried a little during asking her Daddy about the dolphins.

It was almost 7.30pm when the boat heading to the Kampung Dew. There, we were able to see the firefly. It was so strange that the firefly only come to certain species of trees.

In the dark, it looked like a blinking Christmas Tree shining in the dark. And, it were just a few trees on the river side, not the whole stretch of the trees along the river. Just only for a while, then we were taken back to the jetty, and completed our river cruise tour of the day.

It was so tiring but really a fruitful one. The children were so happy about it. It was almost 8.00pm when we had our light dinner in one of the restaurant at the village.

Then, we were so tired and went back to the hotel, took our shower and have a good sleep. The river cruise concluded our day at Kuala Sepetang, and we were never regretted on that, it was the highlight of our day!

3D Surfing Tricks ^^ 8 Jun 2016

We were on our family movie night out and we saw this stand just outside the cinema lobby area.

Here are some pretty cool actions that both kids did!

I Love Pan Mee!

Here is a photo that Kim Thai forwarded to me showing Issac was enjoying his Pan Mee very much!

Issac was helping in making the pan mee too, at Mahkota Tuition Center during their lunch time.

An Afternoon @ Kuala Sepetang 2 Jun 2016

After our charcoal factory trip, we heading to Kuala Sepetang town itself, at first we were looking for our hotel first as we do not know where is the place.

It was not so difficult to find, a its signature eagle head have showed or already a landmark here in this small town. The person in charge was not there yet.

We just unloaded our luggage in the reception waiting area first, as the time of check in is not arrived yet.  The hotel helper suggested to us that we should have our lunch then only come back for the check in.

We were looking for a restaurant named Xin Kuala Sepetang Seafood Restaurant, as this is recommended by Mr. Chuah. It is not difficult to find either, just the entrance to the restaurant is a bit weird, we entered from the back door.

It was such a nice view as the restaurant just situated at the river side. Thus, the visitors can see clearly the river view, fishing boats just from their dinning tables.

The children were so excited on this! They were running around the restaurant just to see the fishing boats passing by, the small boats which transport the bakau wood to the charcoal kilns, and seeing the eagles flying over the river hunting their food.

Daddy ordered a sweet and sour steamed fish, a vegetable dish and a braised taufu. It was just nice for us.

There was a little misunderstanding on our hotel booking, luckily it was settled with a call and we were able to check in after our satisfying lunch at the seafood restaurant.

After checked in to the hotel and settled down with our luggage, we went out to the town again for a walk. The weather is so hot, everyone of us is sweating!

The town itself is not big, to be exact it is a fishing village, located along the Sepetang River connected to the sea.

We were walking passing by the houses along the river. Some of the units actually are converted to the docks for the fishing boats to park at the ground floor, and the first floor either is a restaurant or their own homes.

We walked in to one of these unit, the families members were busy segregating and categorized the prawns at one side

At the other corner at the dock, they were receiving the caught of the day - unloading the fishes from the fishing boat to the dock.

They were friendly too, as they do not stop us from enter to their working place. We were allowed to walk around and watched how they doing their works without disturbing them. This was the first time, all of us get so close to the real fishing boats at work.

After this, we did walk in to another unit but the fishing boats were parking so far in near the river, that we only able to see their cold room area only.

We can see all the fishes were taken out from the  cold room where they stored and started to load it to a lorry. The fishes were so big and fresh.

Unfortunately, that was not for sale, as the owner told us that it was for wholesale, where they would deliver to nearby city. I think may be for restaurants or the hypermarkets. Or even to Taiping or Ipoh. Well, this time, the owner of the shop was not so friendly, or may be they were in the midst of loading the fishes.

After walking out from the fishing boats docks, we headed to the center of the village where is the famous signage of the “Port Weld” railway station sign are.

We went to the nearby hawker selling ABC and some fried fish ball or fish cakes to rest for a while.

The small stalls in between two rows of shop lots became so packed as it is the location of famous curry mee noodles, ice kacang, fried ‘Loh Bak’ also selling at here.

The curry mee was different from the one we have in Kuala Lumpur as it came with cubes of coagulated pig’s blood, which it is quite alien to us.

Moreover, my man does not like that at all. Thus we just have some fried ‘Loh Bak’

It was such a cooling after walking under the hot sun in the afternoon. Even though the school holiday just started, the visitors or tourists are started crowded to this small little fishing village.

Along the way back, we can see all sorts of fish, shrimps were putting under the sun to make salty fish, dried shrimps, dried squids, etc..

We walked back to the hotel and took a rest before we got ready ourselves for the 5.00pm river cruise trip.

Matang Historical Museum 2 Jun 2016

We were on our way to Kuala Sepetang on the 3rd day of our holiday, and I have noticed this huge looks like government complex just at the road side.

It is a huge house and look different in the middle of a wide green field, and it is located in the middle of the kampung / village. We were sort of curious. Daddy just pulled aside the car and we decided to pay it a visit.

Later on I know that this Kota Ngah Ibrahim Historical Complex had been change the name to Matang Historical Museum.

It is located at Gantang Hill, Matang (formerly known as Permatang), Perak. It was built by Ngah Ibrahim, who carried the title Orang Kaya Menteri Paduka Tuan. He was the son of Cek Long Jaffar, the first Malay who opened tin mines in the Larut, Matang and Selama areas in 1840.

We found out that this is really a big mansion and it is huge. We can see an elephant replica just at the main hall of the ground floor.

It seems like Long Jaafar had an elephant as a pet. He called this elephant, Larut. One day, Larut went missing for two/three days. He kept on looking for Larut and finally found it few kilometers away from his house. He was happy when he saw Larut, but he was puzzled with sparkling mud that covered Larut’s front legs. He later knew that it was actually Cassiterite or also known as tin. And so he named the area as Larut (in remembering his elephant), which stays as Larut Tin.

Knowing the limitation of Malay people in tin mining, Long Jaafar went to Penang and imported two Chinese groups, known as Gee Hin and Hai San. Gee Hin was led by Chin Ah Yam, while Hai San was led by Chung Keng Kwee.

They worked professionally but unfortunately, they envied each other. With this mentality, these gangs had caused not one, not two, but three Perang Larut, with each war came with specific reason. Mostly, one killed another and one in loved with another.

Ground floor mainly is the permanent display collections consist of all types of artifacts related to the chronology of events leading to the establishment of the museum itself.

From  the building’s construction and the building’s usage beginning from Cek Long Jaffar’s family, Ngah Ibrahim, English Rule, Japanese Occupation.

We then walked up the wooden stairs to the first floor and saw row of well-painted paintings, each with its description.

Pandak Indut, Dato Maharajalela, and Dato Sagor, three Malay heroes who were behind the great astonishing history of the death of J.W.W Birch, a British resident in Perak.

Pandak Indut was the mastermind, while Dato Maharajalela and Dato Sagor were partners in crime, who killed Birch by the river. All three of them were judged in this building, where British turned the first floor of this mansion as a court. Though they had plenty of time to get escaped, they remained in the prison till the judging day, and that showed how brave they were.

Dato Maharajalela and Dato Sagor were sentenced to death while Pandak Indut was outcast from Perak. Meanwhile, Ngah Ibrahim and other 40 Malays were also outcast to Seychelles Island, for conspired with the killing.

The museum’s first floor permanent exhibitions displays artifacts related to the chronology of from British Rule, Matang Malay Teaching College and the Malay School.

This museum also doubled as a home, fort and administrative center and covers an area of 0.8094 hectares. This building was constructed using only rock-based materials.

After Ngah Ibrahim’s death in Singapore on February 4, 1895, the building was put under the English administration until it was converted into the Matang Malay Teaching College (1913-1922).

During the Japanese occupation in the Malay States (1941-1945), it functioned as the Japanese Army’s headquarters.

After Japan surrendered and the World War II ended in 1946, it was transformed into a Malay School (1945-1984).

The fort was converted into the Matang Historical Museum beginning in 1985 and was handed over to the Department of Museums and Antiquities (Now, Department of Museums Malaysia).

On the way out from the main building, there is a Japanese memorial monument, in remembering the late officer who used to turn this house as one of the Japanese operation center later after World War II.

We decided to walk around the museum before we left the museum to Kuala Sepetang. At the end of two corners, there were zinc sheds with information board. We had no idea how to reach the area, for there was no pedestrian walk heading to these two places.

We later got the information that these two sheds were sheltering two old wells found by the archeologist. We were also being told one of these platforms served as “beheading spot” by Japanese army.

At the other side of this building, we saw one gated old and high-raised grave, with super clean pergola and tiles. It is the late Ngah Ibrahim’s grave, the man behind this noted fort. He passed away on 4 February 1895 and was buried for 110 years at Singapore, before being brought back to Malaysia by his heir, on 9 September 2006.

It was quite an informative trip we got here. Last but not least, we have a group picture before we left to Kuala Sepetang.

Taiping War Cemetery 1 Jun 2016

The Taiping War Cemetery is actually on the way we went to the Taiping Zoo and Night Safari and the Bukit Larut.

We can see clearly see two lush fields lined with neatly-organized grave align themselves at opposite sides of the road.

It did give a feeling or sense of serene and peaceful here to whom ever is passing by this area.

This Taiping War Cemetery, was erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission sometime after the War.

During the Japanese Invasion, many soldiers from British and Gurkha regiments perished during a short but intense battle, culminating in a hasty retreat to Singapore.

When the war was over, a British major and his team were tasked with collecting the various dead buried across the country in forests and villages.

With the help of Aborigines (Orang Asli), about 900 soldiers were located and exhumed from their burial plots to be interred here.

Among the dead were soldiers of British, Australian, Scottish, Chinese, Malay and Gurkha origins. The graveyard is only one of two such memorial graves in Malaysia, the other being in Labuan (Borneo).

There are separate entrances to the two parts, the plots of Christian graves lying on the south-eastern side of the road and the Muslim and Gurkha graves on the opposite side.

In the Muslim and Gurkha section the Stone of Remembrance stands in front of a high bank which forms the north-western boundary.

The two small shelters in the cemetery have been constructed of local stone, and a low stone wall flanks the road on each side.

There are now 864, 1939-1945 war Commonwealth casualties and 1 Dutch casualty commemorated in this site, more than 500 of whom are unidentified.

We walked into the Christian graves and snap a few photos.

I can not imagine the family behind those soldiers whom were sacrificed in this cruel war back their homeland and waiting for their sons to return home. It must be heartbreaking. I did notice from the date stated on the tombstones, most of them were young, really young at their early 20s.

This was our last destinations of the day, which after this we went to town again to hunt for our dinner.